


Flowers of Autumn Days

by madame_le_maire



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: (courtesy of voksen), Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Javert is confused, M/M, Post-Seine, They Make It Work, Valjean is miserable, autumn of happy after summer of sad, therapeutic gardening
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-19
Updated: 2013-10-19
Packaged: 2017-12-29 19:24:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1009127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madame_le_maire/pseuds/madame_le_maire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When dawn rises above the destruction, both Valjean and Javert find themselves lost, each in his own way. The year is coming to its close as they cross paths once again. Yet, sometimes an end means new beginnings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flowers of Autumn Days

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Carmarthen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carmarthen/gifts).



> Hope this meets your interests! I've tried my best and I hope you will enjoy it :) 
> 
> Vaguely book canon, but since I haven't actually finished the Brick yet (oops), the timeline is a bit wonky. The title comes from a poem by Alexander Pushkin. Rating's somewhere between hard T and light M.  
> 
> Huge thank you to voksen who helped make this into what it is <3

The trees quivered in the rising wind, squirming as if the long stillness of summer had been enough to disaccustom them to the breeze. Valjean stood in the doorway of his house, breathing the fresh air. The garden stretched out before him, a sea of green.

Then his gaze fell on its quiet depths as if he had been called. At the faraway gate, a tall figure hovered in uncertainty.

***

The heat had pressed down on Paris that summer, the sky a heavy blanket, and with every hour Valjean felt his strength bleeding from him.

He was alone; the city in a daze after the thunder of catastrophe; his heart aching from the love cut away, tender buds that had only begun to blossom after decades of pain. 

It seemed as if his years had caught up with him, aided by his anguished soul. Days passed and Valjean spent hour after hour as if asleep. It could have been centuries later when he awoke to see that the calendar showed the day of their wedding; Valjean closed his eyes again, feeling like there was nothing to open them for anymore.

He had been gone almost too far, almost beyond the edge of rescue – it had been through a minor disturbance of his plans that they found him. Hot tears had spilled over Cosette’s face as she knelt before him, like liquid fire dropping onto their joined hands. Valjean’s heart, almost a stone again, wrenched with the pain of a month’s separation, splintering and breaking before her.

They nursed him back to health. The boy, remorseful, helped as he could, though Valjean waved his awkward excuses off. Cosette begged him to stay, but still he could not burden them with excessive hours of his presence. They were young; happy and carefree in their ways despite the horrors the boy must have seen and the bleakness of Cosette’s childhood.

Valjean took lodgings in another house – none of the others seemed safe enough, even now that his enemies were gone, vanished alongside his lifelong shadow. The new house reminded him of their old residence on Rue Plumet; it was less closed off from the outside world, perhaps, the garden larger and better cared for, surrounded by tall hedges that took away the necessity to leave it wild.

No matter the sweet words they had parted with, no matter the promises, no matter that, forgiven, he had chosen this exile himself – declining dozens of invitations, again and again – still Valjean had felt sadness overtake him as he watched Cosette leave. And so he had stayed on the doorstep, staring after them long after they had disappeared into the distance.

*** 

Seeing that familiar shadow, Valjean startled – for months he had believed him dead! Had he at last come to keep his promise? – but the deep melancholy that filled him left no room for fear and the inspector’s stiff hesitance did not feel a threat. Valjean beckoned him across the garden. 

As Javert passed the door, he took off his hat in an awkward motion. The lines of his face were etched in deeply; some of them Valjean remembered from a decade ago, others had been put there by worries he had not witnessed. The corners of Valjean’s mouth twitched in a kind of sad amusement at the way Javert fiddled nervously with his hat; it seemed to him that there was not much that Javert's arrival could change for the worse.

Outside the window, autumn took its first breath.

***

When Javert had woken up in a strange bed, his throat raw and a horrible ache in his body, he had known that the path he’d chosen could not have been the right one. The hospital was loud and crowded with too many wounded from the barricades, and he was almost unable to move; there had been too much time for thought.

Escaping the decision had been wrong - why else would he be here?

Javert stared at the ceiling; thought about Valjean; and then, after days of thinking and torment, decided to lie – once. Had that one decision not been enough?

He had returned to his home, to his post, with no more than a grumble for an explanation of the letter and his strange disappearance. In the aftermath of the revolt, there was enough unrest to take the focus off him quickly. Weeks passed while Javert walked the nights, returning to his rooms as morning dawned in grey light and the clattering of early carts echoed in the empty streets.

If he had lied, it had been only through silence; not much different from the barricade, he told himself. Still the falsehood was a thorn in his mind. For weeks, he tried to ignore it; yet with the patrols came the arrests.

A shopkeeper who had failed to pay his taxes fiddled at his sleeves and fled his gaze with shaky fingers and trembling lips. Javert looked at him and saw Jean Valjean.

What if he did not deserve this either? What if he was a saint, too - what if, in condemning him, Javert would fail again?

He huffed in frustration, growling at another officer to postpone the arrest, and stalked off, hands clasped behind his back. Yet he could not escape his mind. At every decision in the line of his duty that he faced, Javert felt lost.

If the law was not justice – and it could not be, for it put saints behind bars – then what was? How could he decide without creating injustice again ? His frustration rose, stealing his sleep, until at last he had had enough.  
On the first of September, Javert had gone to seek out Jean Valjean.

***

Valjean’s face was honest as he pointed to the cross; simple dark wood against the white wall. Javert almost broke out in laughter before he realized he was being serious.

This was to be the solution to the mystery of Jean Valjean? Javert’s thoughts were a storm of fury, unfolding around him as he stalked home under the sun that burned down too brightly on his greatcoat. Well! He had read the books too, listened to the same sermons, spoken the same prayers, those sleep inducing monotone murmurs. 40 years of that and still he was supposed to have missed something? Javert’s heart had never been in any of those things. God’s law was but another law to uphold. And by now he had learned the dangers of unconditional commitment. 

In Montreuil-sur-Mer, Madeleine… Valjean... had shown him his beliefs in great detail – there had been long discussions between them about that; the giving of alms, the ridiculous range of his mercy.

Javert still could not prescribe to that doctrine of pure love, nor did he understand how Valjean could. There were more saints in the world than he had believed, it seemed, but just as many scoundrels - and how could he love them when he needed to pursue them? Only somebody as illogically naïve as Valjean could… yet somehow, the things he did turned to goodness all the same, while Javert’s deeds ran through his fingers like sand.

The torment that wrenched his mind was as deep as his anguish on the Pont-au-Change. But it was not a correct decision he searched for this time – he simply wanted to know.

What was right? He felt like he was no closer to the solution. Yet his thoughts now strayed to Valjean – daily, hourly, until he felt like there was not a minute unfilled by the memory of that familiar face.

He truly was in the area by chance that afternoon, Javert told himself, banishing every thought pointing to the contrary from his mind as he turned towards Valjean’s home once again.

***

Valjean looked tired, Javert noted. He had been looking tired for the last few weeks, a ceaseless lethargy in his movements as he moved about the house despite the kind smiles he gave Javert. While he was still the man Javert had remembered, strong both in mind and body and tireless against any stone fate threw in his path, he seemed weighed down by a deep sadness that appeared on his brow whenever he forgot Javert’s presence.

The girl was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps that fool of a revolutionary had not died, after all. The memories made Javert uncomfortable and he chased them away as fast as he could. Yet still the sight of Valjean raising himself from his bent position after setting down some gardening equipment – slowly, as if his back pained him, in spite of the strength still visible in his arms – touched Javert strangely; he found he could not stand to see this man, who was so honest and kind and good, broken in this way. 

He cleared his throat awkwardly. “Do you… happen to need help?”

Valjean turned to him, looking as if somebody had shaken him awake; the corners of his mouth twitched, albeit hesitantly.

***

“I would have never thought gardening to be such toil,” Javert muttered. He heard Valjean laugh quietly, but took no offense.

Groaning, he straightened his back, feeling bones pop back into place. For all the hours they’d spent picking apples off the grass, the mess on the ground seemed unchanged. His hands were dirty with earth and the traces of rotten fruit, but he had touched worse things in his life. The hot sunbeams were more trying, as well as the lack of opportunity for talk. 

When he turned to Valjean, he saw him transformed, a pink hue on his cheeks and traces of laughter still on his lips, and suddenly, Javert found it hard to look away.

“It is a good pastime in many ways,” Valjean told him as they sat in the kitchen. “I have never found myself nearer to the Lord’s creation.” 

Javert could only shrug. He could not claim he understood. Like the Lord he followed, Jean Valjean moved in mysterious ways still closed to him, but Javert could see no path to salvation but watching and trying to learn from him.

***

Valjean had a generosity in his manner that seemed to come from somewhere deep inside him, that had been perhaps taught by life in the same way that his character had been transformed through hardships, and which Javert still could not entirely comprehend. Or perhaps it had simply been given to him by God on the day of his creation and he had always carried it with him, through poverty, toil and flight, fall and redemption.

Sometimes when they worked in the gardens, he would turn to Javert and hold his hand out to him, fruit between his fingers – just like that.

The first time, he had been bewildered beyond reason and distracted by the somewhat hesitant but still warm smile blossoming on Valjean’s face. The apple had been a warm weight in his hand, its juices both sweet and sour in his mouth while he had watched the whiteness of Valjean’s hair shining under the bright sunlight.

How the mystery of Jean Valjean’s existence could deepen even as he learned new things every day, Javert could not say. He continued taking fruit from Valjean’s palm, now daring to bow his head instead of holding out his hand, and wondered if the brief brush of fingers against his lips existed in his mind only.

When Valjean offered him half a pear one day, its juice running over his skin, Javert, with the calm rigidness he used to shut down fear before going into the night streets of Paris towards dangerous duties, brushed his lips across his palm. Valjean shuddered, but his fingers brushed Javert’s cheek lightly like a stray breeze. He looked up, met Valjean’s startled, tender gaze, and came undone.

His insides fluttered like a stray butterfly and he yearned – for what, he did not know. But the hedges suddenly looked too porous, the rustles were too loud, and the sky too wide and open, with not even a cloud to protect them. Had his knees not turned to jelly, he still would not have dared to reach out.

The door squeaked behind them. Javert turned. Valjean’s eyes, bright and clear like the cool air outside, locked with his, and they flew towards each other at the same time. The fabric of Valjean’s shirt rustled as he wrapped his arms around him; his body was warm and solid, but still it felt like he was holding something precious and frail. Javert felt Valjean’s hands pressing against his waist gently – his hair smelled of fresh autumn air.

Valjean breathed out against the side of his neck. Javert shuddered and buried his fingers in the folds of his shirt, seeking out the hidden warmth of Valjean’s skin.

***

Gentleness had found them and it would not leave again soon, it seemed. Javert tried not to examine their need for closeness. Meanwhile, they did not flinch away when their shoulders pressed against each other, though they acknowledged each touch with flushed cheeks and darting gazes. Lacing their fingers over the table like foolish youths, they examined each other’s hands, every roughness and scar; took note of every patch of skin inducing shivers with veiled embarrassment.

Harvest came with full force. They cut the apples into slices to dry them into crunchy chips, baked tarts and pies, cooked jelly and jam that filled large glass jars. A few of them they kept, the rest they sent on its way to the Pontmercys; never mind that they would have a supply worthy of years on their hands. Cosette loved apples, apparently – though Javert doubted anybody could appreciate them in such a capacity.

“Oh, have mercy!” he cried out another day as he came into the kitchen to find Valjean up to his elbows in flour. The now-familiar smell of baking apples had spread over the room like a blanket.

“You will have to find a fruit dealer next year”, Javert muttered, “I don’t think I will be able to look at an apple ever again.”

Still, when Valjean held a piece of the tart to his lips after it was finished, the apple’s juices sizzling and spreading an appetizing scent, he could not bring himself to refuse – especially as he remembered he had not eaten since lunch. The syrup was sticky against his lips; the apples’ sweet and sour tang filled his mouth and the dough crunched as he bit into it. He made a small noise in the back of his throat when it burned his tongue, but swallowed obediently.

Valjean caressed his lips lightly before drawing back. He did not stop looking at Javert's mouth, however, and Javert felt a strange feeling overtake him, his thoughts turning to places he had never known.

“You have...there...” Valjean’s fingers were back at his lips. His brows knotted in concentration as he thumbed at the corner of Javert's mouth with gentle pressure and the look of a man who was used to care. Then his eyes flickered up, by accident maybe, and Javert startled - but it was too late to flee his gaze or pretend he had not been staring. His breath hitched; it seemed to echo loudly in the silence of the kitchen.

Valjean’s eyes were impossible to read; Javert had known that ever since Montreuil. There was still too much he did not understand, too much that was closed to him.

They had already been standing close to each other, though modestly enough. Valjean stepped closer yet, against the brink of propriety, and it seemed almost impossible for what was between them to pass for everything they had pretended it to be – everything which it had never been.

A whisper of air in the overheated room and then Valjean’s lips pressed against the corner of his mouth, where his skin was sticky with sugar. Javert's pulse pounded in his ears, his eyes fluttered shut, and he was deafened, transported to a world where there was only Valjean: his lips, his smell, and his breath warming his skin.

He took a deep breath. The time for decision was running out – to step back, to cough and start talking about the weather – it was almost too late. Javert was still no man for nuances. They could not remain like this forever in innocence; he was too enamoured, caught too deep in Valjean to want anything less. The decision had been hanging over them for some time -- and in that moment, he knew he would make it.

Javert had to turn his head only a fraction of an inch to capture Valjean’s lips with his own.

***

The days grew shorter and the golden sunlight withered away. More and more clouds rolled upon the sky, their grey masses immense against the horizon.

Harvest was slowly coming to an end. It had been lucky foresight that they had put the last crates and tools away safely that afternoon, Javert reflected, staring out into the pouring rain. A mug of heated wine warmed his fingers; behind him, the first firewood of the season was burning away in the fireplace, lit against the growing chill and dark.

“It’s pouring down like no one's business. My walk home will be a sorry affair, as washed out as the streets get here.”

“Then do not go.” Valjean had come up behind him quietly. Javert saw the innocent look on his face reflected in the windowpane before him and hid a small smile behind the rim of the mug.

***

They both were new to this kind of closeness, but in return, each caress that drew a shiver or a shaky moan was worth a hundred. Time trickled away while the falling rain shielded them from the world.

Valjean was strength and gentleness in equal parts and Javert did not know how he had spent all his life without touching him.

He was so caring, so selfless – not just in bed, but always, every single second; Javert felt strangely uncertain. Was he worthy? He had never been kind and he would never be, even if he tried to be just. Valjean’s skin was hot under his touch, human, yet in some moments Javert could not believe him real. That Valjean was taking him – giving himself to him with generosity, though he did not deserve... Javert’s head spun; he dipped his head and tried to dampen the sobs that would not stop tumbling from his lips.

Not a sheet of paper could have fit between their bodies. Valjean caressed and held and clutched at him as if he could disappear any second, nuzzling his nape, his throat and pressing fluttery, desperate kisses to his face as if he needed this intimacy to live; Javert gave himself willingly, he would have given him anything.

***

Once it had begun, the rain scarcely stopped, as if it had been waiting for an invitation. The streets of Paris became a mosaic of puddles that never dried out and more often than not, Javert would barge in through Valjean’s door, the city’s dirt covering him to his knees, and spend half an hour muttering obscenities while scraping mud off his boots before offering the proper greetings.

The roads outside the city were just as bad when Valjean felt the inclination to venture out, yet there the earth smelled clean and the air was fresh. Crows hopped around on the fields, picking at remains of straw for lack of anything else, and the wind had no boundary, sweeping across the land with unbelievable force. Valjean’s boots were hardly any dirtier than Javert’s when he returned from those walks, but he still refused to accompany him, with many excuses. The inspector was the city’s child, and it seemed that man-made dirt was dearer to him than anything nature could offer.

The thought made Valjean smile to himself as he ventured into the garden, even more so when he spied Javert. It was a miraculously rainless day, though the grass was still wet under his feet and drops fell off the trees' branches, as if in mourning for the dryness of the sky. The air was cool and sharp with the sweet tang of rotting foliage.

Javert was raking together fallen leaves. Part of them they would store in a shed to turn to compost, the rest they would burn at the fall of darkness. The image of Javert’s profile lit by the bright flames, sparks flying around his dark hair, came to Valjean’s mind; for a moment was lost in it. Javert himself pulled him back into reality.

“Are you mad? You will give yourself a chill!”

Valjean shrugged, folding his arms, clad only in shirtsleeves. He had indeed forgotten his coat.

“It is not so cold.”

Javert sighed pointedly, laid the rake on the ground and, mumbling something Valjean chose not to hear, walked past him.

Valjean looked up at the bright, colourful treetops rustling in the wind. A letter from Cosette had come that morning and his heart had warmed glancing over the hand he had watched growing from shakiness to maturity throughout the years. There was still a sad hue mixed into the sweetness of her memory, but it did not hold him in its clutches anymore.

The breeze swept another leaf from a branch and it glided through the air to join its companions on the ground. Somehow, all of this was for the good. The limbs growing barer by the hour, the rain washing away the dust... as if the world was clearing itself of old charges to start anew.

A weight came to rest on his shoulders. Valjean turned his head, shaken from his revelry. The fabric of Javert’s greatcoat was heavy and warm, a comfort despite its roughness; it smelled clean, though deep within it carried the traces of a thousand roads taken. Some things did not change.

The hands that had settled the coat there did not leave his shoulders and Valjean leaned into the touch, back into warmth. Their breaths were white in the cold air.

“Winter is coming,” Javert said behind him, his voice pensive. Valjean smiled a little, turning his head and resting it against his neck. 

“Let it come.”


End file.
